Tangent DC: Like you
by mytsie
Summary: So, you're The Atom, and you're Adam?" Lia prompted and she could nearly hear his eye-roll in the pronounced, put-upon silence that followed her query. Flash/Atom


_Disclaimer: So I don't own any of the Tangent characters, but damned if I don't own all of the comics._

_A/N: I really like these two. I don't know why. I just do. Tangent!DC is amazing._

Like You.

"So your name, is _Adam Thomson_, right?" Lia asked as she spun, idly, in her drab office-chair. She had circular perception—it came with being a solidified body of light and the subsequent lack of proper internal organs—so she watched the newspaper above the couch even as she twirled around.

"Yes," the newspaper answered as it rustled and the man reading it turned its pages, "it is."

"So, you're _The Atom_, and you're _Adam_?" Lia prompted and she could nearly hear his eye-roll in the pronounced, put-upon silence that followed her query. Her chair came to a slow, gradual halt before he answered. Out of habit rather than need, she twisted to face the couch.

"Yes," he said and sighed, "I am."

"And you're also _A. Thom_son," Lia stated and winced as the newspaper folded, abruptly, and was cast aside. The dark-haired man behind the paper all but glared at her, and she was tempted to start spinning in her chair again, just to see what he'd do.

"And you're _Lia Nelson_," he stated flatly, attempting to mock the lyrical lilt of her voice. He was tall, dark-haired, classically handsome, and built like he ate freight-trains for breakfast—Lia couldn't help but smile in girlish glee as he paid attention to her, positive attention or not.

"Yeah, but my name's not funny," Lia responded lightly and Adam all but scowled. He was a quintessentially nice man—the variety who could save the world from a super-powered madman and give puppies to orphaned children on the same day—and Lia took a great amount of perverse pleasure in being the only person (besides the Joker) who could consistently cause him to flirt with anger.

Though, admittedly, she'd rather he flirt with _her_.

"Isn't your mother here to pick you up yet?" he jabbed and his lips—his perfect, pouty, somehow manly lips—pulled into a tight line. It was a low blow, and he knew it, but Lia would not be fazed by such simple tactics. Besides, he used that line just the other day, when they were on patrol over Europe.

"So why are we doing a Television spot, again?" Lia diverted the conversation and spun her chair again—now he scowled openly, his irritation palpable. "Not that I mind...or haven't done one before," Lia continued and punctuated the air with her hands, her chair wobbling unsteadily as she did so, "it's just not really _your_...bag, _yanno?_"

"We're here," he began explaining _again_, "to tell the world about the 'International Powers for Peace' conference in New Atlantis." Lia nodded and folded her arms behind her head as her chair lazily circled.

"_Boooo_ring," Lia announced and Adam snapped.

"Well, _I'm sorry_ that the prospect of **World Peace **is interfering with your valuable time," he said in as harsh a voice as she'd ever heard him use—it was still about half as chiding as any of her teachers. "I'm sure you'd rather be out...shopping, or whatever it is little girls _like you_ _do_."

"I don't go shopping," Lia said lightly, as if she weren't just driving the world's most revered superhero up a wall, "But this _is_ cutting into valuable _superheroing_ time." Silence descended across the room as Adam seemed to have trouble digesting that statement. The chair Lia was in squeaked slowly as it came to a halt—this time, she didn't bother to right herself and face him. "You know, time we could be using to catch bad-guys and save the world, or whatever it is heroes _like you do_."

The anger drained out of Adam Thompson as if a spigot had been jammed into his rippling pectorals. Lia tried not to imagine that metaphor, and frowned lightly as an expression near guilt slid over his face. The two were spared the awkwardness of the approaching conversation as an intern with an earpiece plowed through the greenroom door.

"You're on in three," he crowed and Lia was out the door before he blinked. Adam followed at a significantly slower speed.


End file.
